A Little Something Awesome about Firefox 3

Mary Colvig

107

Deb Richardson, author of the about:mozilla newsletter, wrote one of the better explanations I’ve seen on the “AwesomeBar,” Firefox 3′s revamped URL bar.   It’s not the most humble of names, but if you check out Deb’s post you’ll see why it’s earned it.

In Deb’s words, here’s a quick snapshot of what makes Firefox 3′s URL bar just so awesome:

Dubbed the “AwesomeBar”, it lets you use the URL field of your browser to do a keyword search of your history and bookmarks. No longer do you have to know the domain of the page you’re looking for — the AwesomeBar will match what you’re typing (even multiple words!) against the URLs, page titles, and tags in your bookmarks and history, returning results sorted by “frecency” (an algorithm combining frequency + recency).

Not only that, but the drop-list results show you the page’s favicon, the full title, the URL, and whether you have bookmarked and/or tagged the page in a richly formatted two-line display.

2421200414_77674b14a4_o1.png

Example:  I start by typing “ginger”, and AwesomeBar searches through my history and bookmarks to return everything that matches that keyword, showing the first six and letting me scroll through the rest. You’ll notice here that several of the results are bookmarked (blue star icon on the right), and tagged (tag icon). The sites’ favicons are displayed on the left, making it really easy to scan through the results if you know what site you’re looking for in particular.

Check out Deb’s post for more on the AwesomeBar and check back here for more on the cool things to expect in Firefox 3!

107 responses

  1. Pingback from A Little Something Awesome about Firefox 3 on ::

    [...] Epicenter – Wired Blogs wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

  2. Pingback from The Awesome Bar Excites Me! | Firefox Facts on ::

    [...] I’ve been doing some additional reading this morning about Firefox’s address bar – which seems to be slowly converting over in the minds of the public to being renamed the awesome bar. [...]

  3. Pingback from Pages tagged "awesome" on ::

    [...] tagged awesomeOwn a WordPress blog? Make monetization easier with the WP Affiliate Pro plugin. A Little Something Awesome about Firefox 3 saved by 2 others     kilikafinal bookmarked on 04/25/08 | [...]

  4. Pingback from Mitchell’s Web2.0 Talk « DougT’s Blog on ::

    [...] her usage of Firefox on the desktop. She routinely searches for “wheat free”, and the Awesome Bar searches her own history and bookmarks (as apposed to searching the web). Her need when she is [...]

  5. Pingback from New Word - Frecency « DanielSmithDesigns Weblog on ::

    [...] heard of ‘frecency” before? Neither had I until I visited The Mozilla Blog and read http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2008/04/21/a-little-something-awesome-about-firefox-3/. It’s a combination of the words ‘frequency’ and ‘recency’ and refers [...]

  6. Pingback from favicon display on ::

    [...] newsletter, wrote one of the better explanations I??ve seen on the ???AwesomeBar,??? Firefox 3??http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2008/04/21/a-little-something-awesome-about-firefox-3/Make a Animated Favicon / Scrolling Text For Your WebsiteAnimated Favicon: Now for the first time [...]

  7. Pingback from Download Firefox, Set World Record : i tell stories on ::

    [...] The list of updates on the new version of everyone’s favorite open-source browser is extensive. Among the big changes include a better bookmarking interface, faster speed, lower memory usage, and seamless plug-in management. And while I’ve been enjoying all those features in the betas and release candidates so far, the big selling point for me is the new awesome bar. [...]

  8. Pingback from Lehrblogger :: Gmail Tip - Muting Filtered/Labeled Threads on ::

    [...] link in a list email in my List-specific app, it will open in Firefox (and thus be, forever, in my AwesomeBar history). As an added bonus, I get a little red flag in the dock saying how many list emails I have [...]

  9. Pingback from Firefox Eklentisi: UrlbarExt ile Adres Çubuğunu Zenginleştirin · Mürekkep - İnternet Yaşam Rehberiniz on ::

    [...] içerisinde en güzel olanlardan birisi herhalde adres çubuğundaki zenginliktir. “Awesome Bar” olarak geçen bu bölüm belki de Firefox 3′ü diğer tarayıcılardan ayıran ve [...]

  10. Pingback from Reasons I cannot ditch Firefox « Breo Media Labs on ::

    [...] The AwesomeBar [...]

  11. Pingback from Online Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » Checking Redirects? Don’t trust Live HTTP Headers and Firefox on ::

    [...] to check to verify the right header information is being transferred. Unfortunately, Firefox’s “awesome bar” (the part of the browser where you type the URL in) can cause Live HTTP headers to report the [...]

  12. Pingback from Firefox-Entwickler planen weiten Versionssprung | Blog von root_alpha on ::

    [...] geplante Verbesserungen betreffen die Registerkarten (”tabbed browsing”), die Awesomebar und Funktionen für anonymes Surfen. Trotz Neubenennung werden nur Updates einfließen, die ohnehin [...]

  13. Pingback from Web 3.0: The End of Search and Google’s Next Step | on ::

    [...] or expand on them. These plugins change how the web works. Firefox’s recent addition of the “Awesome Bar” which by-passes search but the most extreme change will come with Ubiquity functionality. Ubiquity [...]

  14. Pingback from Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) | LOST IN MASTICATION on ::

    [...] “Awesome” bar ala Firefox 3 [...]

  15. Pingback from The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  16. Pingback from We Love Crowds » The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  17. Pingback from The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity | Web News Aggregation on ::

    [...] integration of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the time [...]

  18. Pingback from The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity | Spin Valley Post on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  19. Pingback from Technic News » The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  20. Pingback from The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity | New Web 2.0 Magazine on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  21. Pingback from Firefox yeni marifetleriyle gelecek | on ::

    [...] aynı zamanda Firefox 3.6 versiyonunda Firefox 3.0 ile gelen “awesome bar” özelliğinin içine Ubiquity (aynı anda birçok yerde bulunma) özelliğini [...]

  22. Pingback from ArticleSave :: Uncategorized :: The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  23. Pingback from Ship’s Biscuit » The Future of Firefox on ::

    [...] Firefox have release some information about what they are planning for firefox 3.2, which looks like a complete redesign to bring in more in line with changing usage patterns. The 2 main areas of change seem to be reviewing/reworking the idea of tabbed browsing based on the itunes layout and integration of Ubiquity – project name Taskfox as part of the ‘Awesome Bar‘ [...]

  24. Pingback from "AwesomeBar" a Real Awesome About Firefox 3 | Discover All Thats's New on the Web on ::

    [...] Firefox 3 the URL bar is being completely revamped in extremely exciting ways. In case of earlier firefox 2 [...]

  25. Pingback from The Future Of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity | Mind Of Michael dot Com on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  26. Pingback from No hay pestañas en el Firefox del futuro | Tecnodatum on ::

    [...] nuevo Firefox incluirá integrará Ubiquity en su también nueva barra de direcciones (ver video). Es probable que veamos todas esta mejoras en la versión [...]

  27. Pingback from The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity | BlogoFlux - Information Technology Blog on ::

    [...] of Ubiquity, a command-line style interface for common browser tasks, into Firefox’s ‘awesome bar.’ Mozilla plans to add this project, dubbed Taskfox, into the main Firefox interface by the [...]

  28. Pingback from 未来的Firefox | 我想网 on ::

    [...] － 以命令行的形式调用浏览器任务 － 集成到Firefox的’awesome bar.’ [...]

  29. Pingback from SmarterFox Makes You More Productive In FireFox « Kathy & Louis’ Love on ::

    [...] articles to Wikipedia” feature will be shown a little further down and the enhancements to the AwesomeBar we did not try out because we do not use the AwesomeBar. But, according to the documentation, it [...]

  30. Pingback from SmarterFox Makes You More Productive In FireFox | DodaPedia on ::

    [...] to Wikipedia” feature will be shown a little further down and the enhancements to the AwesomeBar we did not try out because we do not use the AwesomeBar. But, according to the documentation, it [...]

  31. Pingback from SmarterFox Makes You More Productive In FireFox | Design Website on ::

    [...] to Wikipedia” feature will be shown a little further down and the enhancements to the AwesomeBar we did not try out because we do not use the AwesomeBar. But, according to the documentation, it [...]

  32. Pingback from A Look At Opera 10.00 Beta | PCMech on ::

    [...] AwesomeBar in Firefox sucks. Even in FF 3.5 it’s still a drag to use. You will realize why once you use [...]

  33. Pingback from Edward Andrew Robinson » Blog Archive » Using Firefox + NoRedirect Extension to Avoid DNS Hijacking on ::

    [...] they take me to a search results page. This is how I brows the Internet, I do everything from the Awesome Bar (the bar in Firefox that you type your url into). And yesterday Bell broke [...]

  34. Pingback from Google Homepage – New Drop Down ‘Settings’ Menu – LINUX For You Magazine on ::

    [...] box at the top right corner has been my gateway to the world wide web. Then a few months back, AwesomeBar made its way into our lives and voila, Ctrl+L and Ctrl+K became the most oft used shortcut of my [...]

  35. Pingback from Lehrblogger :: My Life in the Cloud – A Four-Computer Syncing Scheme on ::

    [...] Support folder for this in Dropbox too, and this syncs everything: tabs, bookmarks, history, awesomebar, extensions, all of it. It was essential that this application work for the whole thing to be [...]

  36. Pingback from Get more webpage, less browser from Firefox « Notions from the Bleeding Edge on ::

    [...] Did you know that if you start typing into the Address bar, it progressively searches all your bookmarks and history for matching websites? For example, if you have NPR.org in your history or bookmarks, instead of typing [...]

  37. Pingback from De Slimme Adresbalk | DigiDom on ::

    [...] er meer mee dan alleen het intypen van een webadres. Bij Firefox hebben ze hem zelfs de naam ‘AwesomeBar‘ gegeven om zijn magisch eigenschappen over het voetlicht te brengen. Zo doet de AwesomeBar [...]

  38. Pingback from A/B Testing Email Advertisements | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog on ::

    [...] email archive “awesome bar” (homage to Firefox) lets viewers translate your email, share with friends on social [...]

  39. Pingback from A/B Testing Email Ads | Email Marketing on ::

    [...] email archive “awesome bar” (homage to Firefox) lets viewers translate your email, share with friends on social [...]

  40. Pingback from Nu är Chrome min standardwebbläsare - eskapism.se | Pär Thernström on ::

    [...] i sidebaren (t.ex. mina Deliciousbokmärken, eller Aftonbladets- eller DNs mobila webbsajter), awesomebar och tillägget Firebug. Så det verkar som att Chrome blir surfa-runt-för-det-mesta webbläsaren [...]

  41. Pingback from Mozilla Labs’ Contacts: An Awesome Bar for People – WebWorkerDaily on ::

    [...] while adding some considerable value to the Firefox browser. Think of it as Firefox’s Awesome Bar for [...]

  42. Pingback from Mozilla Labs’ Contacts: An Awesome Bar for People | Stocks! on ::

    [...] while adding some considerable value to the Firefox browser. Think of it as Firefox’s Awesome Bar for [...]

  43. Pingback from Tao Effect Blog » Blog Archive » Steve Jobs’ Response: A Brief Followup on ::

    [...] Firefox AwesomeBar is awesome. It’s like Spotlight for your web [...]

  44. Pingback from –Task Flo.ws– » The N900 & I: From Dawn to Dusk on ::

    [...] Firefox. It was great to be able to have a solid browser with tabs, add-ons and even a download manager. It didn’t allow for zooming in and out as smoothly as the browser that comes installed with the N900 (also Mozilla-based) but it was nonetheless good. Did I mention it even had an awesome bar? [...]

  45. Trackback from Opera 10.5 Beta Beats Chrome as the Fastest Browser Ever... on ::

    Opera 10.5 Beta Beats Chrome as the Fastest Browser Ever…

    var fbShare = {url: ”,size:’large’}Opera’s 10.5 browser has soared to new heights, leaving competitors like Internet Explorer far behind. Opera Software has produced the world’s fastest browser. The software company put all its rivals to sh…

  46. Pingback from Firefox 4 Looks To Be The Most Cunning Yet | Techi.com on ::

    [...] targeting each group, Firefox 4 aims to be faster, cleaner and simpler, with improvements to the Awesome Bar and a revamped extensions [...]

  47. Pingback from iPhone Firefox Home App | Software blog on ::

    [...] features are planned to include use of the Awesome Bar, letting users directly type key words, phrases and the like stright into the URL search bar, which [...]

  48. Pingback from Google auto-complete « Senatorcranky's Blog on ::

    [...] question is how much will the different auto-complete style of ‘awesome bars’ change things, because people can start typing at the start of any word in the phrase…Perhaps [...]

  49. Pingback from Fredrik Bergstrand's Weblog on ::

    [...] but I think it feels a bit old. Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” and the Mozilla Awesome Bar changed the way how I thought about searches, and new services keeps redefining that idea almost [...]

  50. Pingback from 17 Cool Safari 5.0 Features and Tips Revealed | Mac News, Information, Reviews, and more on ::

    [...] is very similar to what Firefox does with it’s so-dubbed “awesome bar.” In addition to offering up pages in your browser’s history and bookmarks, the address bar [...]

More comments:1 2 3

Comments are closed, but trackbacks are open.